During a chemical, biological, or explosive (CBE) event, the presence of detection systems will help mitigate infrastructure damage and/or limit loss of life. Post-event analysis and/or attempts at confirmatory analysis will be complicated by the presence of decontamination substances, the rapid decay of CBE substances in the environment, and the presence of general environmental pollutants. This post-event analysis is important because it enables the gathering of technical intelligence, such as the specific type of CBE agent, its origin, the origin of its precursors, and the CBE deployment method. Additionally, a captured CBE sample could be analyzed at foreign or third party laboratories for the purposes of establishing political consensus about suspected CBE events. There is a need for simplified methods and platforms to capture CBE samples and optionally archive such samples for later analysis.